Oregon Republican Party needs to rebrand itself

John Davis was one of few Portland-area Republican legislative candidates to win Tuesday.

When John Davis met with The Oregonian editorial board in October for his endorsement interview, he cited Patrick Sheehan and Shawn Lindsay as two mentors who had helped prepare him to seek elected office.

On Tuesday, Sheehan and Lindsay, first-term Republican state representatives from the Portland area, lost. Davis, a first-time candidate who was chosen as the Republican nominee in House District 26 after Matt Wingard dropped out in June, won. In five months, Davis has gone from a 29-year-old attorney who thought he might one day run for office, to -- by default -- one of the party's most promising standard-bearers in the Portland area.

In other words, just two years after producing an impressive freshman class and achieving a 30-30 tie in the House, Republicans are all but starting over in the metropolitan area that dominates Oregon politics. That's not good for the party, or for Oregon.

Explanations for Tuesday's Democratic tsunami abound. Democrats own a registration edge in most Portland-area districts. Republicans face a particularly tall challenge in presidential election years, when turnout and partisan passions are higher. When all else fails, Democrats can tie Republican candidates to unpopular aspects of the national GOP platform.

If the Republican Party wants to find a path to relevancy in Oregon and foster debate and compromise that will lead to better legislation for all Oregon residents, it must ignore easy excuses and rebrand itself.

Part of the party's problem is it does not have a coherent brand in Oregon. Absent an identifiable local brand, opponents can simply substitute the national brand -- which Democratic political action committees effectively boiled down to anti-choice, pro-rich.

Rep. Katie Eyre, a Hillsboro Republican who lost her bid for re-election against Democrat Ben Unger despite earning praise from legislative observers for her financial expertise and ability to make an impact as a freshman legislator, suggested three needed elements of party rebranding:

"Republicans aren't all socially on the same page. ... Republicans aren't all wealthy. ... Republicans do have heart."

Another losing Republican, Manuel Castaneda, provided a more concise potential brand during his endorsement interview, when he explained why he chose to run as a Republican.

"In my heart, I've been an entrepreneur all my life," said Castaneda, a first-time candidate who moved to the United States at 14 after living in poverty in Mexico and eventually built a successful specialized-landscaping business. He went on to say he wanted to "promote work ethic, entrepreneurism and opportunities for people to get ahead."

That is a pro-business, pro-economy message. But it's very different from the pro-business message that Republicans have presented nationally. It also was understated in Castaneda's overly negative, PAC-funded campaign against incumbent Rep. Jeff Barker, D-Aloha.

The short term looks bleak for Republicans in Oregon. In the 2013 legislative session, Davis will be the only Republican member of the House who represents a district that derives a majority of its votes from Washington and/or Multnomah counties.

Julie Parrish of West Linn and Bill Kennemer of Oregon City represent Clackamas County-dominated House districts and Mark Johnson of Hood River represents a district split between Hood River, Clackamas and Multnomah counties. In the Senate, there's Bruce Starr of Hillsboro and Alan Olsen of Canby. Other than a handful of Senate and House members who live in other counties and represent districts that include mostly rural slices of a metro county or two, that's it for Republicans in the Portland area.

Republicans need more Portland-area representation to effectively communicate their message and help craft solutions to the state's problems. But first, they need to figure out what that message is.